I will start by saying that I grew up in a non-religious household with a very limited understanding of any religion, so I am taking much of the book's claims at face value. Andy Bannister has written a very accessible book. I thought it would be dry, dense and academic but it has been humanised with anecdotes and wit. It certainly made me think about what little I thought I knew.

The question of whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God is a big one, and this book could easily have been heavy, dull and intimidatingly academic. But instead, Andy Bannister managed to weave together personal stories, illustrations and humour to create one of the most accessible Christian Non-Fiction books I've read.

This book compares the Qur'an and the Bible to see how they answer four questions: Is there a god and what is god like?, who and what are human beings?, what's wrong with the world?, and what is the solution? Through these questions, we see the differences between the God of the Bible and the God of the Qur'an.

This is a really interesting book that brings this discussion to life and I feel like I learnt a lot. I particularly enjoyed the opening chapters exploring why this question is important and why it isn't wrong to be confident that your own faith is correct. This book is clearly written from a Christian perspective, although cites a number of Muslim scholars, so I would be really interested to see a Muslim response to some of the points in this book.

Successfully debunks the view that Christians and Muslims worship the same God and does so in a book that is just long enough to cover the necessary ground yet short enough to keep the attention of those who don't have so much time on their hands. Humorous and serious, biblically grounded and written in what I'd term a 'scholarly-lite' style, it's one that both religious sceptics and those more grounded in religious studies will appreciate. If anyone asks the differences between Islam and Christianity this is definitely a book to give them. Recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and SPCK for ARC.

As suggested by its title, this book tackles head on the widespread misconception that Islam and Christianity are fundamentally the same. Bannister's central idea is that, if you take even a passing glance at either religion closely, their differences are glaring and, what is more, this matters tremendously. Building up from an argument for the inevitability and importance of exclusive truth claims, Bannister lays out four (or so) questions for working out a person's fundamental worldview and takes this as the structure for the remainder of the book.

Being a Christian apologist whose career is built on preaching the Christ of the bible, his commitment to Christianity definitely comes across in his writing. He doesn't believe that Islam is true, yet he writes knowledgeably about both faith systems, seeking to reason and promote a better understanding of both which is eroded by equating the two.

Bannister's writing is packed full of character, with every other page containing a great turn of phrase and the occasional witty non-sequitur. One unexpected diversion imagines what it would be like if Gandalf turned up in Pride Prejudice. There is a point, but you can tell he's having fun.

In contrasting Islam and Christianity, one finds that it helps to create a stronger understanding of both. I would recommend this to Christians, Muslims and anyone else who was interested. It's a helpful and engaging exploration of an important question in the age of plurality.